


Touch & Go

by bleakcreek



Series: Rhink Oneshots [1]
Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Massage, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Unresolved Sexual Tension, mostly this is just very soft, there is no fucking but there is mention of boners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 20:19:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19158268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleakcreek/pseuds/bleakcreek
Summary: "I could rub your back for you," Link offers. There's no tease in his voice, no humor, nothing to suggest this is a joke, as if it's the most normal thing in the world for him to suggest. Like it's something he does all the time.





	Touch & Go

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally published on my tumblr but i've cleaned things up a little and fixed some types. thanks to catboylink for reading this for errors. this is the first thing i've written for the rhink fandom but it almost certainly will not be the last.

They're on day four of six straight days of touring, and it's almost midnight by the time they file into the hotel. Every vertebrae in Rhett's spine feels like it's been twisted and scrunched in on itself after hours on end in the tour bus. The adrenaline from the show had been the only thing keeping him upright, but now that it's over and they're no longer surrounded by hundreds of screaming fans, every nerve in his back feels like it's on fire.

"You okay, man?" Link is lounging back on the room's single bed — Rhett's bed — like he belongs there, and not down the hall in the double he'd insisted on sharing with Britton. His brows are pinched in concern, which means Rhett must look just as bad as he feels.

"M' fine," he grumbles, even as he twists and cranes his back. Something cracks audibly, and he can see Link wince out of the corner of his eye. "The bus just doesn't really have enough room for me to stretch out." A sigh escapes him, and he plops onto the bed with enough force to make the bed dip beneath him. "Usually when it's this bad, I'd sweet-talk Jessie into giving me a back-rub."

"Hmm." Link rolls a shoulder before leaning forward on the bed, bracing his palms against the bed spread. "I could rub your back for you," he offers. There's no tease in his voice, no humor, nothing to suggest this is a joke, as if it's the most normal thing in the world for him to suggest. Like it's something he does all the time.

"You don't gotta do that, man." He doesn't look back at Link, and he hopes the creeping warmth he feels in his face doesn't show. "I'm just complainin'."

"C'mon, don't be stubborn. It's only weird if you make it weird." Link smacks him lightly on the arm as he leans in toward him, words punctuated with a roll of his eyes. "Now lay down on your front and pretend I'm your wife."

He's already moving back on the bed when he says, "Pretty sure your massages don't end like hers, brother." He's going for teasing, but the words come out too soft, too charged.

Link laughs anyway — just a soft exhale of air, not the full force laughter he was going for, but it's enough for Rhett to convince himself that maybe he doesn't notice how off-kilter he feels right now. "Not for free, anyway," he says, with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle, "but ask nicely and I might give you the friends and family discount."

It's enough to break the tension, and Rhett huffs out a laugh before scooting up and arranging the pillows to give himself something to brace against, then glances back at Link. "Shirt on or off?" he asks.

"I've seen you in your boxers three times in the last twenty-four hours, man." Link levels a look at him like it's the dumbest thing Rhett could have possibly asked, and Rhett almost points out that this is different than the two of them quickly swapping out clothes in their dressing room, but he doesn't. "'Sides, I doubt Jessie's rubbing your back while you're wearing a shirt."

"You're not Jessie, man." He tries to put a bite into the words, but the words catch roughly at the back of his throat, and he can feel warmth creeping up his neck. (Jessie's massages definitely don't involve shirts, or pants, and sometimes he likes to pretend she's a pretty young masseuse and he's her customer. And they always end the same way.)

"Just take the damn shirt off, Rhett." He can hear the eyeroll in Link's voice, the way exasperation mingles with a faint touch of fondness. Rhett sighs before shucking off the shirt, then settles down against the bed, one pillow hugged against his chest for support.

Link kneels on the bed to one side of him, and seems to hesitate, but only for a moment, before his hands are on his back.

Link's hands are bigger than Jessie's. His fingers are stronger, his touches firmer. Jessie treats the knots in his back like wrinkles in a bedsheet, smoothing them out with warm, feather-light touches; Link, on the other hand, works at his back like a lump of clay on a potter's wheel, kneading and pressing at every knot until he feels it relent. It's not better or worse, but it's certainly different.

The heel of Link's palm grinds into a particularly bad spot on his back in a move that's just shy of painful, and Rhett lets out an involuntary grunt against the pillow.

"Too rough?" Link asks, from behind him.

"Nah. A little rough actually sounds perfect."

"Jessie rough with you, too?" He can hear Link's smirk as he says it, and he grabs one of the pillows that isn't lodged underneath him and chucks it backward, flogging him in the thigh with it.

"Quit talkin' about my wife, man," he snaps, and Link lets out a particularly unflattering sound Rhett can only describe as a guffaw. "Ass," he mutters, though there's no real feeling behind it.

Link works in silence for several long minutes, hands working diligently at one particularly stubborn knot in his lower back, and he hears Link huff. "Can't get a good angle like this," he gripes, his voice thick with apology, and Rhett is about to tell him not to worry about it when he feels the bed shift under Link's weight. It takes his brain a second to catch up with what's happening, that Link has one knee straddled on either side of his hips.

He steals a glance backward at Link, who's braced on his calves and hovering over Rhett's thighs, careful not to put his weight on him. He should be grateful that Link isn't putting them in more contact than strictly necessary, but he can feel every scant inch between them, like they're being pulled together by some magnetic force.

There are words on the tip of Rhett's tongue — a joke? A protest? He doesn't remember, because all at once the full force of Link's strong, relentless hands are working at the base of his spine, and all capacity for higher thought evaporates. He feels like putty in Link's hands, stretched out warm and soft beneath him, and a low, keening moan slips out of Rhett's throat.

He's about to apologize when he hears Link laugh, soft and breathy, behind him, and says, "Like that, yeah?" Link's fingers dig in deeper.

Rhett makes a hissing, choked off sound, and he can hear Link sigh behind him.

"C'mon, man, I'm not gonna get offended if you make a noise or somethin'. It's kind of a compliment — I mean, it's s'posed to feel good."

Link's hands skim up his sides, skating across his ribs and soft abdomen, just barely too firm for a tickle. There's no aches there, no pain, nothing but the feel of Link's fingers dancing on warm skin, so he knows the soft moan that slips out of him is unshakably incriminating, but if Link notices, he doesn't seem to mind.

"Man, you gotta relax. You're tense all over." Link's voice is a murmur, soft enough Rhett isn't even sure he's supposed to hear it.

He could tell him that he's pretty effectively worked out every last knot in his back, and that any tenseness left has nothing to do with his bad back and everything to do with the way he's half-hard and using every ounce of self-control he has not to hump the mattress beneath him — he could, but of course he doesn't.

All told, Link spends somewhere around half an hour rubbing and kneading and wringing out every inch of his back, and Rhett punctuates every few minutes with a soft sound of pleasure that makes Link preen every time. But eventually, Link sits back on his heels, his ass settling onto the back of Rhett's knees, and gives his thigh a gentle slap.

"Alright, my hands are starting to cramp, so I think we're about done," he says, and Rhett can't help the chortle that slips out in response.

"That how you talk to Christy?" he asks, smirking over one shoulder at Link.

"Shut up, man." Link throws back the same pillow Rhett had chucked at him earlier, but Rhett catches the hint of a smile twisting at his lips. "That feel any better?"

"Mm, still think I might need to steam myself like a lobster in the shower, but yeah — much better." He twists around on the bed and plants his feet on the floor. His sweat pants are tented in the front, and he doesn't think he imagines the way Link glances down momentarily. "You still gonna be here when I get back?"

It's a question, an invitation, and a promise, and Rhett watches Link's pink tongue peak out and swipe over his lips.

"Might be." His words are noncommittal, but his blue eyes are intense, blazing. "Stayed here longer'n I meant to, and Britton's probably asleep by now. Be rude to wake him up."

Rhett showers quickly, just long enough to let the steam loosen up his muscles and the hot water rinse the sweat off of his skin, not bothering to wash his hair or do more than run the cheap bar of hotel soap over his skin.

The sight he's greeted with when he gets back is, in retrospect, exactly what he should have expected.

It's barely been ten minutes, and Link is down to his boxers and a t-shirt, his glasses still on his nose. He's laying back on the bed, mouth agape, and fast asleep. It might be annoying, if it wasn't so endearing, and Rhett reaches down and plucks his glasses off of his face and folds them onto the nightstand, then pulls the blankets from under Link and drapes them over him. He shifts and stirs but doesn't wake, and Rhett huffs out a fond chuckle before crawling into the bed beside him.

Before he can fall asleep, Link has already readjusted himself in his sleep, plastered up against his side with limbs splayed over Rhett's. Link is half-hard against his hip, though whether from whatever dream he's having or the residual effects of earlier, he can't say.

Rhett just sighs and drapes an arm around Link's shoulders and let's himself drift.

Maybe they'll talk about this in the morning. Or maybe Link will laugh it off, or maybe Rhett will chicken out and avoid the subject. But for now, Rhett's content to just stay like this. Anything else can wait til morning. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ http://bleakcreek.tumblr.com/. you know what time it is.


End file.
